Fandom and Reviews
Doki Doki Literature Club! has a strong online community presence. This is largely in part to the unique storyline, but also because the community creates and sustains itself. Doki Doki Literature Club! has over 9,000 total reviews on Steam. Over 6,000 of these reviews are in English. 97 percent of the reviews are positive, with users recommending the game to others. 2,662 reviews are negative, or “do not recommend.” In my analysis of reviews, I was looking for descriptions of feelings that the game evoked, why they liked the game, shared tips on how to play the game, spoilers/inside jokes, and creative reviews. 200 recommended reviews were analyzed and described in Figure One following Steam’s restrictions on search “My Language” and “Most Helpful Reviews Overall”. Reviews often contained several qualities (funny review and 10/10). User comments on reviews were not analyzed. Reviewers typically spent between 0.1 hours and 19 hours of game play. Additionally, Figure Two analyzes the do not recommend reviews by sampling 100 negative reviews from January 2018 through April 2018. Reviewers typically spent between 0.1 hours and 5 hours of game play. Figure One: Analysis of a sampling of recommended reviews for Doki Doki Literature Club!, 2018 Quality Expressed Quantity of Reviews Figure Three: Analysis of not recommended reviews for Doki Doki Literature Club!, 2018 Qualities Expressed Quantity Standout Reviews: “this is coming from the perspective of a non weeb. this game is utter crap, the anime grills are not even that hot and the scenes with them dont make my wee wee hard. I spammed skip the whole game for the hot anime grills and then some weird death scene popped up. i have no idea what the hell it was, overall a terrible game unless ur some gay weeb who wants some weird ♥♥♥♥♥♥ story.” The subversion of the stereotypical “faping” visual novel didn’t sit well with this particular player, but his review is telling. Instead of reading the visual novel and interacting with the text, the player uses an auto function that scrolls through the text until it reaches a choice. Specifically, this user was looking for the erotic content to masturbate to, as if these games are just animated porn. And the implication that staying for the story is “gay” signifies toxic masculinity and an avoidance of expressions of feelings. Several reviews contained updates as players progressed through the game. These are interesting to evaluate on their own because they signal the reviewer’s changing reaction to the game as the narrative unfolds. “User: IamTheRedd Recommended 10.5 hrs on record POSTED: APRIL 1 10/10 would recommend 1 Not much into anime 2 Never "played" a visual novel 3 Got attached to some purple haired anime girl 4 Left the game more depressed than I came in 5 It's 2 in the morning 6 Steam didn't notice how long I played the game 7 Had to open it and stare at the menu screen for 5 min to write this review 8 Rethought my 4 hour relationship with a 2D, purple haired anime girl 9 Contemplated life 10 Wrote this review 1 Okay game wasn't finished, still seems fun 2 Just Monika. Just Monika. Just Monika. Just Monika. Just Monika. Just Monika. Just Monika. Just Monika. Just Monika. 3 Played this 100% through now. Scroll up, and download this game now, and just play it. 4 It's been two weeks since I've first opened up this game. Monika is my waifu now. I now listen to "Your Reality" religiously. Send help. Nvm pls don't 5 I have now downloaded ‘Monika After Story.’ I can now spend eternity with my waifu.” Reviews are also how players communicate to each other and they communicate several things. Inside jokes and creativity were dominant in the reviews making up 22.5 percent. “User Billy Hunter 420 Recommended 0.0 hrs last two weeks / 2.0 hrs on record Posted: Nov 16, 2017 @ 9:27pm A little bit of Monika in my life A little bit of Monika by my side A little bit of Monika is all I need A little bit of Monika is what I see A little bit of Monika in the sun A little bit of Monika all night long A little bit of Monika here I am A little bit of Monika makes me your man﻿” Billy Hunter 420 is mimicking a 1990s pop song called “Mambo Number 5” by Lou Bega but substitutes the spelling of Doki Doki ''Monika to make an inside joke about how Monika deletes everyone else to be with you. Forever. Creative reviewers also posted poems that articulated their feelings about the game, the characters, and the game play. “User: Princess 0.0 hrs last two weeks / 3.0 hrs on record Posted: Jan 8 @ 10:18am Updated: Jan 8 @ 10:20am I discovered a free game With such beautiful art Intrigued by it's strange name I click start Four girls to spend time with All of them cute The disclaimer must be a myth But the first route leaves me mute Their stories resonate with my heart Their poems convey their thoughts Even as everything falls apart I still love them lots Staring at the ending screen I heave a sigh of satisfaction At how great this game has been To get this reaction The soundtrack is amazing So is the story The developers deserve all these praising And all the glory Thank you for opening up to me I'll be saying goodbye for now Monika, Sayori, Yuri and Natsuki But i know I won't be forgetting you somehow” Reviews of ''Doki Doki provide a large quantity of data about how viewers initially interacted with the game and continued to interact with the game after its completion. While the basic gameplay elements were the same for all of the gamers and couldn’t be manipulated (press space to read the next line of text), players experienced a range of experiences. Some auto piloted forward through the text to find erotic content. Many users played the game through one time (less than 5 hours) and was emotionally charged from the storyline and characters. A few reviewers (more than 5 hours) finished every narrative web and achieved all of the intimate moments with the three girls. The creative and joke reviews highlight the effect that the video game has on the player: to connect the game to another pop culture reference and to spend time crafting a poem speak to the level of interaction and sustainable creativity that the game has achieved and inspired. Players sustain the literacy the game by participating in reviews, posting and replying on the discussion board which triggers replay, debate, and complex understanding of meaning. Fan Art In addition to reviews, the Steam page for Doki Doki Literature Club! contains a section for players to upload and share their fan art. Some artworks are gifs, others are digital artworks while the themes of the works vary from screenshots of the game, creative reworking of the characters into new visual narratives, and reactions to the game. It’s unclear how many artworks are displayed on the community page, but 100 works were analyzed for content themes. There was some overlap with artworks being both cute and erotic. See photos and videos for more examples. Figure 4: Fan Art Analysis, Doki Doki Literature Club! Sample size, 100 fan artworks. Fan art Qualities Quantity Fan Created Mods The online Reddit community is well known for creating and distributing modifications for video games. Often the modifications are created to insert special erotic content, but they can also be narrative driven or simplistic visual tools like new outfits. The Doki Doki Modification Club is a sub reddit that lists free to download mods for ''Doki Doki. ''One download is Dokis and Dungeons, where the modder placed the four girls in a fantasy like environment and had them be a Dungeons and Dragon Club instead of a literature club. Another mod is called Just Monika, where you can play to court and woo Monika. Fan art and fan created mods sustain and contribute to literacy with the visual novel community because they provide additional, and personal, narrative webs. However, fan art and mods not only sustain the consuming of the visual novel, they challenge the traditional concept of authorship. Fans create material that is personal to them about media that they love in order to full fill narratives that they don’t see in mainstream media. ''Doki Doki ''takes about 3 hours to complete in traditional play, but this paper could continue to discuss the community and the game itself for another 50 pages easily.